Post #15 - January 5, 2017
A week or so before Christmas I came home and there was a box on my front step. It was from Eleanor. I brought it inside the house with very mixed feelings. I hid it in my living room, so I wouldn't have to see it. I wasn't going to open it until Christmas. The next day I went snowshoeing and thought about The box. I decided I was going to write 'Return to Sender' on it as I did not want a gift from my mother. In past years, I opened the gifts and then put them in a pile to go to Goodwill. I do not want physical reminders of her in my house. This time I decided I would send it back and I wrote a note on the box - something like this: "I do not want Christmas gifts. The best gift you could give me is to get to know me as a person." I put it back out for the postman to take the next day. I was immediately afraid of the consequences. Afraid of what I had done. I had refused a gift from my mother....something I had never done before. What would she say? How would she feel? Would I get a nasty phone call from her? What kind of person does that? On the other hand, I didn't want it and in my efforts to be authentic and true to myself, decided that was the right thing to do. I still feel that way. I have not heard anything from her.
My therapist has talked to me a lot about Radical Acceptance....accepting people for who they are, while at the same time keeping my boundaries intact. I have found this extremely difficult to comprehend. I can understand the concept, but in reality, that's damn hard to do. How do you accept someone, while still saying 'no' you can't say that to me? Or 'no' you can't send me those emails. Or 'no' I do not want daily text messages. Or 'no' I don't have to be around someone that makes me uncomfortable. She, my therapist, has also talked to me about The Container. I told her that my thoughts sometimes go rampant and I have a difficult time 'controlling' them (or reining them in). I try to figure things out, try to make sense of things, try to come to grips with things to no avail. She told me to imagine a Container. It be can whatever I want...a box, a jar, a suitcase. Anything that can be closed and locked. She told me to take 15-30 minutes a day where my brain can go crazy thinking about all of this crap and to write in my journal whatever it is I want/need to write. And then after 15-30 minutes to put it away for the day. If thoughts come back throughout the day, then I put them in The Container and tell them I'll deal with them tomorrow. It sounds sorta silly, but it really works. I let my brain run rampant each day for awhile and write furiously in my journal and then put it away. What a mental relief this is. Along with this, she has suggested that if someone starts to irritate or bother me to say something like, 'That's just Eleanor being Eleanor.' Or 'that's just Kevin being Kevin.' or 'that's whomever being whomever.' It's also part of the Radical Acceptance practice. I say this to myself....not out loud, although I may in the future if it seems warranted. I have found this EXTREMELY helpful. It makes what the other person is saying/doing much less personal. I don't have to take it on, figure it out, fix it, etc, because by golly, it's not about me! It's THEIR stuff. I don't necessarily have to stick around and listen to it or be part of it either. Saying those words "that's just them being them" is sooooo freeing.
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